Hi there, writers and friends!
Welcome to the 85th episode of Your Words Unleashed Podcast!
I’m celebrating the fact that, according to Listennotes, which is the main podcast search engine, my little podcast now ranks in the top 3% globally!
I’m pleasantly surprised by this news, as it had hovered around 5% for a couple of years.
And not to undercut myself, but I do take it with a grain of salt.
Because I know that the website counts inactive podcasts—which are the majority of them.
But I couldn’t figure out why for the past couple of months I had been receiving a lot more pitches from random folks to appear as guests onto my podcast—and this explains why.
And this is a TOTAL sidenote, but if you ever want to pitch yourself to be on a podcast, at the very least you need to show that you’ve listened to it before and know what it’s about.
The vast majority of pitches I receive don’t even mention my podcast or its content.
Incredibly, to me, 99% of these potential guests have nothing to do with higher education or academia.
Do your research, is all I’m saying.
Which is pretty funny, since you’re all researchers and you DO know what I’m all about and what I’m trying to do here.
So once again, I thank you for the support you show by consistently tuning in.
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Anyway, it is getting towards the end of July, which means that summer is almost over in North America.
Most of my clients have to turn their attention back to teaching and service in the next 2-3 weeks. That might be you as well.
How are you feeling about it? Probably not too good.
Now, if you’re feeling regretful that you didn’t get as much research and writing done as you had hoped, congratulations for being a human being!
You, and everyone else, probably fell prey to the Planning Fallacy.
I’ve talked about this before but it’s always worth mentioning again.
This is the universal tendency to vastly underestimate how much time it actually takes to accomplish something.
And it’s extremely easy to do when it comes to large writing goals that involve many different kinds of tasks and sometimes coordinating with other people.
Kerry Ann Rockquemore, founder of NCFDD, has really good advice about this.
She said you should take your first estimation of how long you think something will take.
Then multiply that number by 2.5 X to come up with a more reasonable expectation.
Now if you didn’t do this over the summer, join the club. I didn’t either!
And, let’s be honest, sometimes you DO do this. Then life intervenes in the ways it does and things get drawn out longer.
So let’s also work on giving ourselves some grace.
But you can try keeping this principle in mind when it comes to your fall semester writing goals.
So with that said, today I’m going to talk about a question that comes up a lot, which is: how much time you really need to spend writing to move things forward?
How Much Time Do We Actually Need to Write?
So last week I did a 90-minute online workshop for a professional organization of sociologists on the topic of finding the deeper purpose of your work.
We had some really great conversations.
And it was a real treat for me to be back amongst a group of fellow sociologists, most of whom I didn’t know.
I use these workshops as a way to keep my ear to the ground of what’s truly going on in higher ed.
I’ve been out of the academy now for three entire years. I cannot believe it has already been that long!!
But because of that, my memories are starting to fade.
Despite the fact that all of my clients are academics, these days, I feel like I’m viewing academia from the outside in.
Which is pretty weird, to be honest.
But one thing really came through from this workshop.
It’s that right now, for very obvious reasons, people don’t feel a lot of hope about the academy or the impact of their own research.
It’s very natural that when the world feels like it’s on fire, we’d question the utility of sitting at our computers trying to hammer out a paper that ten people will read.
This seemed to be true regardless of one’s position—whether they were a PhD candidate or a full professor and chair of their department.
So we spent a lot of time talking about core values and identifying the internal motivations people have always had for doing their research and writing.
Because if you only have external reasons for writing—like getting a job or tenure—you will invariably burn out in the process.
So, one of the questions that came up at the end was, “How much time do you really need to spend writing to move your research forward to publication?”
Now, this seems it should be a pretty simple question to answer. But it turns out that there is a ton of conflicting information out there, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.
There are books and programs that say that all you need is 15-30 minutes a day.
Is that really enough? What about folks who like to spend entire mornings or full days writing? Does that work better?
And let me just clarify that by “writing,” I’m referring to everything that goes into creating a written document suitable for publication.
So this includes things like: brainstorming, free writing about your ideas, outlining, drawing concept maps, new writing, revising, copy editing, and doing citations.
The only thing I don’t count is reading and taking notes. And that can be hard because sometimes you just need to read things as you write.
But I always like to ask people, “if you truly accepted that you were a world-leading expert on this topic (which you are), how much would you actually read?”
And it’s usually much less than they’ve been doing. So keep that in mind.
Now, let me talk you through some of the most common advice that I’ve seen out there, and then I’ll offer a few takeaways that will help you figure out what works best for you.
The “15 Minutes a Day” Method
You’ve probably heard the advice to write for just 15 minutes a day.
And honestly, this approach can really help people who’ve been stuck build momentum and make progress.
There’s even a book called Write Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day by Joan Bolker that is devoted to this topic.
Now, this is actually a misleading title. The author is quite clear that 15 minutes a day will not be enough to finish your dissertation.
BUT her point is that the writing must come first in your priorities each day, whether that be measured in time or number of words.
Basically, to be successful, you need to write something each day. In other words, writing can’t just be relegated to when you have huge blocks of time.
You don’t need to wait for a sabbatical or three weeks at a cabin in the woods, which is how a surprising number of people I’ve spoken with have finished their dissertations.
You just need to show up consistently.
So this is a really good idea for folks who’ve been procrastinating on writing for whatever reason (and if this is you, check out my episode on procrastination).
Or you might be in a phase of life where you’re being pulled in a ton of different directions.
Like I heard from some of the workshop participants, this may be because of caregiving obligations, a heavy service load, major administrative roles, etc.
Having a short, focused daily practice can help you get back into a good writing rhythm.
Say you wrote every week day for 15-30 minutes without fail. You would invariably build momentum and reconnect with your ideas.
Your brain also works on your project when you’re not actively thinking about it.
Like, have you ever woken up from a dream with some solution to a problem? That’s because your mind is still chewing on things overnight.
So if you worked on the same piece of writing for five days straight for 15 minutes at a time, that would probably get you further than devoting 75 minutes on one day to the piece.
But, like all good things, there is a catch.
For some kinds of writing, especially when you’re doing complex analysis or restructuring a whole article or chapter, you need more than a few minutes to really get into the zone.
Long Writing Sessions and Retreats
So that’s short writing spurts.
On the other side of the spectrum is the advice to block out long, uninterrupted stretches of time for writing.
If you’ve ever had the luxury of a week-long writing retreat or even a day with no meetings, you know how good it can feel to be able to sink into your work for hours on end.
You can make a lot of progress when you’re not constantly task switching.
The obvious downside is that most academics don’t actually have that kind of time very often.
And when we do, we often spend the first part just trying to remember where we were and what we were working on.
So if you wait for long periods of uninterrupted time, you may end up binge-writing.
This was my biggest mistake when I was writing my dissertation. I would literally spend Monday through Thursday reading and taking notes on a billion books and articles.
This conned me into feeling productive when I hadn’t actually accomplished much.
Then on Fridays I would try to write and I would just sit there stupefied.
It would take me at least 30 minutes to open up all of my different notes, read through them, and figure out where I was from my last writing session.
It was a huge waste of time.
I also came to realize that a big part of me was deeply afraid of committing words to paper, and this approach allowed me to procrastinate on doing that.
Therefore, my progress was really uneven because every week I started and stopped.
I’d quickly lose the thread of what I was trying to say, so it was very hard to gain traction.
This is why I wrote 100 pages in a frenzied, over-caffeinated 3-month period when I HAD to finish in order to start my postdoc.
It was only that huge looming external deadline that got me to commit the time that was actually necessary.
That said, some of my clients ONLY write well if they have at least 3-4 hours of completely open time in their schedule.
When you’re on the tenure-track, making that happen each week takes considerable effort but it IS possible.
If you’re one of these folks, then I’d say you need to commit to the same day and time every week.
You have to schedule all of your meetings on different days to not conflict with your writing sessions.
And ideally you could do more than one of these chunks.
In case something happens to shorten one or you have to miss one, you’ll still have another one to make up the time and not lose momentum.
So, what IS the right amount of time?
The truth is that there’s no one-size-fits-all rule for how much time to spend writing each week.
It really depends on your personality and the different things you have on your plate at this particular juncture in your life.
What I often tell my book authors is that they will need a minimum of 5 hours of focused writing time per week to make significant progress on their manuscripts.
But again, people do all kinds of different things to get there.
So whether you shoot for 15 minutes a day, an hour three times a week, or all day on Fridays, there are certain things that you can do to make sure you’re making progress.
#1: The first thing is to make writing a priority and not something that only happens AFTER everything else is taken care of.
Because, as we all know, academic work is never finished. So if you leave writing to the end of your list of tasks, you probably won’t do it.
Instead, successful writers commit to writing before they do other things. Remember the concept of paying yourself first? If not, listen to my last solo episode about time management.
#2) Secondly, you need to PROTECT your writing time at all costs.
So whether it’s a half-hour a day or a blocked-out morning or afternoon, you must treat this time like a meeting with someone you would never want to disappoint.
It is very easy to give your time to other people and crises that feel more urgent than your writing does.
Especially if you are a helpful person or a team player, you will likely put the needs of others before your own. And that, in today’s neoliberal university, doesn’t help you get tenure.
This is why I so strongly encourage co-working with others, whether in person or online. Having another person for accountability helps you honor these boundaries.
Otherwise, what I’ve seen people do again and again is block out writing time in their calendars and then use it for emails, teaching prep, or even last-minute meetings.
#3) A third thing that will help you make progress is to break your writing tasks into small, manageable, measurable chunks.
NCFDD has some good resources on how to break down big projects.
But when it comes to a daily writing session, right when you sit down you need to decide what exactly you will be working on.
The more finite and concrete the task, the easier it is to know you are making progress.
And consistent progress equls momentum, which is one of the necessary ingredients of feeling like a successful writer.
Another quick tip is, at the end of your writing session, jot down what you want to work on in your next session. Jot down which documents you will need to have open in order to do this.
That way, if you don’t get a chance to write again for a few days or a week or even longer, you have direction when you sit down to work again.
As I’ve learned, reducing the “start up cost” the next time around can save lots of time and stress.
Summing Everything Up
Today I’ve tried to give you some clarity on how much time you need to spend writing in order to move your work forward.
But when it comes down to it, being flexible and open to changing what’s not working is the best way to figure things out.
How much time you spend writing will depend on what else you have going on in your life at a particular juncture.
There may be semesters where you only have 15-30 minutes a day, and that is great.
Other times, you may find yourself with long, open stretches that you can devote to diving deep into complex ideas.
But regardless, it’s important to remember that progress doesn’t always mean written pages.
It might be as simple as opening a document you’ve been avoiding and realizing what you wrote wasn’t half-bad.
Each day we all have a precious opportunity to start again.
By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about my workshops, I’m booking them for the fall.
Until next time, take care. And happy writing!